In this installment of the ‘Agronometrics In Charts’ series, Sarah Ilyas studies the state of the California avocado harvest. Each week the series looks at a different horticultural commodity, focusing on a specific origin or topic visualizing the market factors that are driving change.

California produces the majority of U.S.-grown avocados, meeting about 10 percent of the nation’s consumption.

The current season is drawing quickly to a close. The 2021-22 crop year was marked by favorable market conditions, an early start to harvesting and more of the crop shipping in the spring than is usual. The early start to the season also led to an early finish. 

According to the California Avocado Commission, a cumulative volume of 263,875,590 pounds was harvested, Hass avocados made up roughly 94 percent of this volume at 248, 914, 514 pounds. For week 36, The Hass Avocado board projects a total of 350,000 Hass avocados coming from California. 

Avocado growers suffered many of the same water-related impediments that other producers have been battling with. Had there been more rainfall during the season, fruit sizing would have likely been a bit larger since a longer growing period usually amounts to a larger size. 

Limited amount of rainfall and the state of irrigation helped expedite some of the harvest plans for some of the growers.

Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics. (Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)

This season saw strong pricing, reflecting the quality of the avocados available during the season. 48s saw the highest pricing this season, at $89 per package. 

Source: USDA Market News via Agronometrics. (Agronometrics users can view this chart with live updates here)

Marketing support for California avocados is now shifting into off-season mode. During the season, marketing was targeted to areas where the fruit was in distribution. 

October 1-2, 2022 marks the 36th year of the California Avocado Festival which is an annual festival held every October in Carpinteria, California. This year, over forty non-profit groups will benefit by catering to 100,000 avocado visitors.

The idea of the California Avocado Festival began in 1986 and has evolved into one of the largest festivals in California with three days of festivities.

In our ‘In Charts’ series, we work to tell some of the stories that are moving the industry. Feel free to take a look at the other articles by clicking here.

All pricing for domestic US produce represents the spot market at Shipping Point (i.e. packing house/climate controlled warehouse, etc.). For imported fruit, the pricing data represents the spot market at Port of Entry.

You can keep track of the markets daily through Agronometrics, a data visualization tool built to help the industry make sense of the huge amounts of data that professionals need to access to make informed decisions. 

If you found the information and the charts from this article useful, feel free to visit us at www.agronometrics.com where you can easily access these same graphs, or explore the other 21 commodities we currently track.